On the Death of a Hero
by KBRC
Summary: When Castiel had become human, he had done so with the full intent of growing old with Dean. It was never supposed to end this way. WARNING: character death. (firsts story by a friend, it's really good!)


_**AN: this is the first fanfiction by one of my very best friends, and I think it's brilliant and begged her to let me publish it here (and she agreed!). Hope you enjoy, she really fell into writing and spent hours on this.**_

When Castiel had become human, he had done so with the full intent of growing old with Dean. He had looked forward to the first streaks of silver glistening amongst his dark locks and to the solemn creaking of ancient bones sighing under the weight of long-passed dignity, to running his fingers gently along the brown-specked wrinkles in Dean's face and to tracing the same rough, enduring folds in his own scarred skin. He'd wanted hearing aids and beerbellies and splintered oak canes to replace the cold iron of the guns they had for so long been forced to wield. He had never considered, in his endless dreaming, that becoming human would mean becoming mortal.

It was never supposed to end this way.

Cas had always known the Winchesters were to die in battle. Some prophecies cannot be broken by defying God and cheating Death, and Castiel had accepted long before that Team Free Will would not last forever. Sam and Dean were to die together, war-torn and weary, in an act of defiance that would be immortalized forevermore in the works of prophets, hunters, and all the grateful people whom they had ever saved. The older brother was to pass with a knife to a stomach, the younger with a wrench of the neck by an invisible and unimportant arm. They would die in the same instant, a deal made long before their birth by forces stronger and more mysterious than Castiel or anyone could ever be aware of, so that neither had to feel the final loss of the first and last friend that either man had ever known. They were to lose the battle but win the war; and Cas had known that when Dean died, so would he, and they would share a heaven as they had shared the broken soul to which Cas had tied his lifeline not so long ago.

But the prophecies had never dictated the death of a certain angel Castiel, or the decimation of the tortured and broken body that had once been known as Jimmy Novak. When a stiff and subservient soldier of God had first chosen this vessel from a long line of worthy disciples, he had been aware of a few trivial flaws in the corporeal structure of the man he was to claim. But, the body was pure and whole and only had to keep until a lone, defeated, broken man chose to accept a crucial role in a war of powers far beyond his meager comprehension. So Cas had ignored the tiny cavity in his largest molar; he had ignored the slightly crooked thumb, bent sideways in a third-grade football game and never properly set; and he had ignored the small, dormant tumor located in the upper left region of his otherwise ordinary stomach. But now, fifteen years later, that tumor was no longer dormant, and the once mighty angel lay pale against the sticky sheets of a hospital bed in a small and underfunded hospital in western Oklahoma.

Dean would of course not die with Castiel. The soul-link only went one way, and he had a destiny far stronger than the gentle tug of an emaciated angel too weak even to feed himself. The most Dean should feel would be a small prick in his chest, and then a particular lightness as eleven thousand years of grief and five hundred shriveled feathers were lifted off his crippled chest. Dean, of course, would feel more pain than that, but this was a pain that could not be cured with a good night's sleep and a long, hot shower. This was a pain that would leave him cowering in his bed, woken by alcoholic nightmares of memories past that could never compare to the loss of the one man whom Dean had ever loved.

The cancer was terminal; Cas had a month at best. And he was glad for that, because the sooner his doomed body withered and his slowing heart stopped and the dusty shadow of what had once been feathers left a grimy stain upon the railing of the feeble iron bedframe, the sooner he could be tossed and burned and forgotten, a pile of melted bones in an unmarked grave, and the sooner Sam and Dean could move on with their own encumbered lives.

Cas had first felt the weakness months ago, a sort of forceful queasiness leaving him feeling sick and unsteady and in want of thrusting his throbbing head into the swirling concrete wall. What had been left of his wings, a fragile outline that had once been so resilient through the purge of the last remaining strands of his tattered Grace, began to crumble into dust, leaving sooty stains in the backseat of the impala and on the worn interior of his beloved trenchcoat. Cas had met with Death already, in the dark corners of his forgotten dreams and in crowded alleys buried beneath his endless thoughts, thus he was never startled by the realization of his approaching fate; it began as a small seed, implanted into his mind by a strong and weary hand, and it gradually grew and gathered dirt until it was big enough to see. And then it continued growing, watered by the increasing pain and nourished by Cas's needless altruistim and denial until finally it bloomed into a great black blossom of despair. And Cas collapsed and Sam caught and Dean wept and grasped and prayed. And then the doctor said "one month" and Castiel said "enough" and Sam said "Cas, how long has this been going on?"

And then Dean yelled with a desperate fury, his voice bleeding anguish and his pounding fists rock-solid with distress and weak with "you son of a bitch," and "you should have friggin' _told_ me." But Castiel knew that eleven months was nothing, because it was an eleven months in which Sam was stable and Dean was sober and the weight upon their straining backs was lighter than it had been for a long time. And after that Dean wept only when he though no one was looking, and Cas no longer smiled through the deep and deafening pain. Decaying books of healing spells and fruitless talks with solemn reapers replaced the simple precision and brusque clarity of shoot-and-salt-and-burn. No food replaced diner food, stress conquered sleep, and Castiel observed that each night an extra swig was taken, until Dean's hair lay flat and smooth across his unwashed forehead and his fading eyes were overshadowed by a thick layer of molten desperation which cast a deep and looming darkness across his tired and unshaven face. Yet through this cruel and palpable asceticism to which he was so addicted, Dean continued to be gentle, leaning over on the side of Cas's bed, an old book in his hand, softly running his shaking finger along Cas's withered collarbone, cheekbone, brushing away a lock of hair from the pale clammy forehead which still contained the mass of black it had always kept, because chemo had been deemed a waste of resources on such a "_tragic_, _hopeless"_ case. Cas had only wished that the color had been a paler shade of grey, and that the finger brushing against his skin had quivered with arthritis rather than the harsh, eternal inebriation which he had so hoped Dean had purged.

On some peaceful nights, when Sam was running on caffeine and worry inside the crowded walls of a warm and useless library, and Dean slept off his drink and sorrow in the faded plastic chair positioned underneath the tangle of IV bags beside the feeble bed, Castiel would reminisce on days gone by, wading through the sea of crumpled thoughts and greying faces which he had for so long treasured. He would remember Uriel's unyielding devotion and Anna's bold and shining strength, could hear Jo's soft and gentle laughter at Bobby's sudden burst of "balls!" whilst in the background Dean would headlock Sam and mess up his hair before opening the battered fridge to grab another round of beer. And Cas thought about his own imperfect youth, of his father's expectations and his brothers' diligence and his own naïve, persistent courage. He remembered the day of Lucifer's betrayal, when the clouds had thundered with a burning rage as he and Raphael and Zachariah played a lazy game of hopscotch through the sky. He remembered the wrath of Gabriel when Cas had ruined the cheesy punchline of his favorite joke, compared it to Michael's colossal fury when some other boy had stepped a meek and inquisitive toe slightly out of line. And as Cas drifted through bouts of quiet consciousness and sad, placid nostalgia, the narrow lines between good and evil began to blur together. For hadn't Lucifer loved his father just as much as Uriel? Hadn't Raphael too wanted to save heaven and restore peace to his beloved home? Hadn't Gabriel, fighting on the side of man, attempted the murder of his own blood for the sake of a greater good? Cas grew to understand that life – life, in the sense of existence and proud cognition, not simply of beating hearts and structured flesh – could not ever be defined. It weaved its way through good and evil, leaving every victim a hero of his cause, every being a tangled mingling of good intentions and matters of opinion. And in this state of peace and in the quiet sanctuary of Dean's warm and soft embraces, Cas came to forgive everyone whom he had for so long resented, for their bold mistakes and for their overshadowed glories, their sad regret and lack of it; for everyone was fighting for a cause, and struggling through the cold, thick fog that is sentient existence in its truest form. As his plastic medicine bag dripped and gurgled, and his fraying lungs wheezed with a certain mindful persistence, and as Dean's hair smelled of pear and honeydew and the leather seats of the impala, somehow pristine in their state of pale worn cloth and blood-stained threads, Cas even began, hesitantly at first, to forgive himself.

In the early morning dialogues Cas had with Dean, amidst the soft clinking poetry of heart monitors and warm breath and distant wailing sirens, when Cas had been woken by sudden convulsions of acidic pain and Dean by the muted groans which Cas had tried so desperately to hold back, he would mention these musings, explain to Dean that this was peace, that lines were blurred and should be kept that way inside a constant fog of uncertainty and entwined in layers of belief, that fighting was important but so was trust and empathy and practiced understanding. And Dean would nod and say "of course, you're right" but all he could think was _bees_, and after he'd gotten up to get a stale mug of bitter coffee from the grimy café down the hall, he'd fetch a nurse and they would converse in harsh and fast-paced whispers which reverberated through the empty tiled corridor, phrases like "spread to the brain" and "losing him" and "there's no sign-" "well check again!"

And though Cas hadn't heard Dean's frantic conversations, he'd always known. He had seen the worry swimming in the rough ocean of Dean's deep green eyes, could sense his muffled and overflowing stress, trickling out of through forced laughter and fake encouragement, as if a tiny leak had sprung in the very container of his soul. So Cas decided in his final week, a week of frailty and impermanence and the crumbling of life, that he would have to give up on enlightenment as well.

And so the final month burned down, melted by the wick of affliction and dripping a waxen shell of sorrow around the crooked bodies of the soon-to-be bereaved. And Cas was tortured slowly, not by the devil or some haughty god but by the fundamental human-ness that drifted through the stale air and filled his aching lungs. It was not the mortality he feared, but in fact the overwhelming flood of grief that had already begun to fill the swollen hearts of Sam and Dean. But Death is just and strength brings peace and so the month turned into weeks turned into hours, and Cas spent all of that unbroken time with his two best and oldest friends.

The last few days deserve to be the kindest. The sun should rise late and cast a dreamy yellow glow across the dying's paled skin, warming him with a hazy comfort and a calming sense of subdued bliss. The mattress should soften, its hearty springs resilient in the knowledge that they will soon be free of the unmoving weight which has restrained them for so long; and the walls should cleanse themselves of their greying pallor so that when solemn shadows are cast in the late morning by friends coming to pay their last respects and soak up a final memory of a man they once had known, the room could be a cleaner canvas, pure and fresh, determined to offset the approaching murkiness that slowly eats away at the corners of the bed, and multiplies with the ashy silhouette of each uneasy visitor. Perhaps these preparations do occur, and death is packaged nicely in the concluding days, washed and plucked and tied up suitably in crisp brown paper that smells of lavender and ageing chamomile. But if there is a small attempt to soften this transition, these subtle concessions go dejectedly unnoticed, for their calming melancholy is overshadowed by the pressures of oblivious men, to "please, don't leave me now."

So what should have been a week of making memories became instead a week of mourning, a lamenting over a life that hadn't yet been lost. When Cas had sensed the finality approaching, had noticed the dusty taste of endings on his tongue and picked up the buzzing static of the impending silence which began to drift into his fading ears, he had asked to be allowed to have a final day of freedom before the impending mossy iron gate came thundering down behind him. He'd been weak and thin and deathly tired, but his dying wish had been to have a Perfect day. He had planned it out four months ago in a shabby motel in Indiana, when the moon had cast an iridescent beam of light upon a glass beside his bed, illuminating in turn as it moved across the sky a blood-stained wristwatch, a pink gum wrapper, and grubby leather wallet engraved in elegant chestnut letters with the initials "JW". As he had watched a tiny spider clamour quietly up the oaken bedpost and begin to spin a glistening web between the headboard and the wall, Cas had listened to his heavy heartbeats intermingle with Dean's contented snores, and he had thought about the future which he knew by now that he was not to have.

Cas had envisioned getting dressed in the early morning, when the stars still shone in the purpling sky and the birds were just beginning to sing their morning song, when the air was cool with a pensive mist and the whole world smelled of grass and golden honey. Dean would drive him to a nearby lake where he would sit and watch the ducks creating velvet ripples in the murky water which had yet to feel the mellow warmth of the afternoon's blazing sun. And Dean would fidget and Cas would laugh until their eyes met, green and blue, and they fell into a gentle kiss, the not-quite-last. And then they would drive back to their run-down motel and Sam would maybe take him to the theatre - Cas had always liked Antigone, but Sam preferred a Shakespeare, or something modern - and Dean would drop them off and laugh at them and tease and call them dorks, but Castiel knew that once alone he would dive an eager hand into his crowded glovebox and pull out a treasured, beaten paperback, and then he would sit in the shade of the impala with the windows rolled down and the radio blaring and he would read the whole thing through. And then they'd go get diner food, though they all knew Dean could cook, so that Cas could eat his final perfect cheeseburger under the neon lights and the orange of the setting sun. And the warm grease would drip onto the crumpled silver wrapping, and the tomatoes would slide out from between the buns just like they always did, except that this time it would not be due to his negligent distraction but to the fact that his fatigued hands could not hold on tight enough. But then Dean would lean around and kiss him, their second-final kiss, and Sam would roll his eyes and squirt more ketchup from the congested plastic bottle, and maybe it would splatter onto his fraying cotton shirt and the remaining half of Cas's Perfect burger, and both would sigh and wipe it off because Cas had always hated ketchup. And Dean would lean back and roar at their expressions until Sam chucked a soggy onion ring at his ear to shut him up.

And after dinner they would take a ride in the impala, Cas sitting in the shotgun seat because the "carcass gets priority". And Dean would drive them to a rocky overpass and they would grab a beer and then all lean back onto the glossy hood, and watch the stars. And then Cas would feel dizzy and they would have to leave, driving back to the grubby hospital where spiteful nurses would scold them all for letting him catch cold. One would wheel him away while another yelled and spat, and after an obedient Castiel was redressed and well-sedated Dean would leave Sam to argue with the doctors on his own, and he would sneak into Cas's room and throw his trenchoat in a heap onto the chair, because he knew Cas hated it. And then he would plant a kiss on Cas's lips and pull away, but Cas would pull him back and kiss with his last remaining strength, and this would be the Final Kiss before oblivion.

But the world is not a perfect place, and perfect days cannot be carried out by real people. And when Cas had, in the tranquil warmth of his tightly-sheeted bed and in the wonder of his hopeful expectations, suggested such a day to the drunken, weary Dean that was seated, slumping, by his feet, Dean had not been alive enough to understand its pure necessity. So he had had to ask the doctor, who'd listened carefully but shaken his sympathetic head, and Dean had agreed and sat back down and there had been nothing more to say. Thus Castiel, fallen angel of the lord, ex-god, feared-soldier spent his final day on earth tied to five small plastic tubes; and lay imprisoned in a dusty cell that reeked of chemicals and faced out onto a crowded parking lot.

Sam, at least, had tried to do his part, noticing Castiel's indignant sorrow and remembering how destitute his own Last Days had been. He had left to take a "breather," and had come back proud with a crumpled bag containing a rain-stained, lukewarm burger from the nearest fast-food joint. But Cas could, of course, not eat it, and the lettuce wilted and the bun was thin and the busy frycook who had made the meal had been consumed by thoughts of brighter futures and bigger paychecks and the new girl in his dorm, and thus he had, excusably, forgotten Sam's request that he please go light on mayo. And no one laughed and Dean was drunk and there was nothing on tv, and at moments Cas forgot that he was not dead _yet_, and he had to remember to not remember because there would be so much time for that, and this was now and now was short and he had to pay _attention_.

So for the last few conscious hours, Cas had devotedly observed. He had observed the way Sam sat slumped with his legs bent outwards, so that his hands clasped each other in a clammy embrace between his shaking knees. He'd observed the constant beeping of his own heart monitor, which used a bitter tone so abrasive that it stung his ringing ears, as if to say, tormentingly, "if you die the pain will stop." And he had observed Dean, all of Dean, every candid feature and bent perfection of the man he'd come to love. He had noticed how the muted cartoons on the television screen left colored fragments reflected in his eyes, how his forehead creased at certain thoughts, unspoken but collectively assumed. He had noted how he ran his fingers through his hair until his palm was loosely bent over the back of his curved skull, and how he'd hold it there for a few long moments before letting his restless, naked arm fall back against his side. Cas had seen the wetness of his bloodshot eyes and heard the quiet clicking of his fingernails against the hard, thin plastic of that worn and ugly chair. He had observed the way he kept his lips almost indiscernibly apart, as if awaiting a sudden exclamation of some new ray of hope, or preparing for a last and tender kiss.

And Cas didn't tell the Winchesters when he finally donned his coat and tied his tie and left his cold and earthly bed. A dark figure had beckoned him from inside his tranquil dreams, and he had followed willingly, with few regrets - for despite its flaws and tears and years of torment, his life had been a life well lived.

Nothing had alerted the Winchesters of Castiel's departure until the steady piercing beeps had merged suddenly into one long resounding wail and a thousand doctors had piled in and the gentle grip had slackened from around Dean's warm and living hands. And the doctors shocked and yelled and called Cas back, but it was much too late. The young courageous Jimmy Novak had finally let go, freed now of the unjust suffering which he had obligingly endured for so much longer than his contrite angel could ever have asked for. And the sun shone through the yellowed curtains and the cat didn't catch the mouse, and the medicine bags continued to drip down through slender tubes and nothing changed.

And then Dean yelled and wept and held Cas's head and Sam placed a hand on both their shoulders, and when they bagged him, for the mortuary, there were still tear stains on his face.

[Thirty-one years later on a plain November evening, when the world was just as ordinary as it could ever be, Castiel's fine-tuned radio picked up the distant sound; a sudden slicing, a muffled grunt, and then a sharp, clean snap. And while a humble silence settled over the imperfect and bewildered world, Death led him to a quiet battlefield where the broken bodies of two old men lay still and twisted underneath a shimmering desert sky. And He let Castiel pick up their tattered souls and carry them through the slowly cooling air, to where a shining black impala sat- peacefully - alone among the stars. And as the three of them leaned, young again, in a warm embrace under the milky moon, they reminisced on times long passed and laughed with an open pleasure, while the dew gathered on their crumpled blanket and the sun progressed across sky, and the bees settled upon the sticky rims of brown glass bottles long empty of the gravities that they had once contained. And by then the flaking mist of life and loss had drifted far behind them, so that the three, weary, battered heroes could at last lay down and rest.]

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